464 AGRICULTURAL CREDIT.—DAVIDSON. 
a problem, but it is not of any interest to the community. The 
problem of agricultural credit is how to supply money at low 
rates of interest to those who are competent to manage it, so as 
to make it yield enough to repay the loan with a profit to the 
borrower. For it must always be remembered in this connection 
that what the lender wants is interest, not farms; and when, 
owing to incompetence on the part of the borrower, the lender 
runs arisk of getting a farm instead of his principai and interest, 
he wiil insist on being paid for the risk he runs. The farm may 
be just as good, but the lender does not want it, and does not 
care for the risk of having it left on his hands. Lending money 
isa matter of business, and a bank exists chiefly for this purpose ; 
but the borrower must show that he has a legitimate use for the 
loan, and that he is competent to use it so as to provide for 
repayment at maturity. As business is, the farmer cannot satisfy 
these commercial requirements ; and the problem for which a 
solution is sought is how the farmer can obtain the credit his 
business requires. 
Is is desirable, in order to promote an understanding of the 
situation, that we should distinguish carefully between the 
general and the special advantages which arise from an efficient 
banking system. Our banking system is designed primarily as 
an agent of commerce and of industry, but it confers great and 
undoubted benefits upon the whole community. It provides 
a sound and elastic money ; it gives facilities to the investor and 
the depositor, and by affording real services to the merchant and 
the manufacturer, it promotes the interests of every member of 
the community. Fortunnately it is not true that one man’s gain 
is another man’s loss, and we all reap some advantage, directly 
or indirectly, from the prosperity of our neighbours. Whatever 
general benefit a good banking system confers on the community 
at large, that the farmer shares with all his fellow citizens, and 
in our own case these benefits are large. 
The farmer also has his share in the personal credit which 
the banks give, and this for him and fcr others under stress of 
competition may be of considerable amount. But this is not 
